Chapter 8 - Out of Place

“5 coming up the right rear! you got them Agnes?” Harold shouts out without turning his head.

“Got it!” I twist around dual casting magic missiles; my fire and ice missiles accelerate through the air decimating the fast approaching monstrous wolves as they burst in an explosion of blood. I refocus my attention to the front, sniping out any easy kills but missing a few distance shots. The wolves that successfully reach us find themselves unable to progress through Florian’s and Philippe’s shields, with Harold to eventually slaughter them with his massive blade. Arrows occasionally fly from the perimeter hitting any stray wolves on the battle’s outskirts, and Aurelie flies around the battlefield killing large swathes of wolves with her magic air disks. The battles soon concludes as the last of the wolves get cleaned up, our party panting in exhaustion. Florian remarks between breathes, “There’s something wrong, there are much too many monsters in the woods.”

Ukfanah descends from some trees, landing floatily as she agrees, “Indeed, the adventurers guild is already aware that monster birth rates and average strength have been increasing over the past decade, but this year seems to be substantially worse than any prior years.”

“Do we know why?” I ask curiously.

She shrugs nonchalantly, “Why would I know, ask the mage researchers.”

As Harold cleans the blood off his blade he groans with a scowl, “Well one thing I know for sure is that our progress has been severely hampered by these damn monsters. We’ve been in this bloody forest for two weeks; we should’ve been there by now!”

“It may be wise to turn back,” Ukfanah suggests as she salvages some of arrows from the corpses.

“Aye fuck that, we’re already almost there.” Philippe loudly argues.

“Oh shit, look at this, a monster core!” Ukfanah happily shouts as she waves the core at us.

Walking over, Philippe smiles widely as he takes it into his hands to give it a look over, cheerfully saying, “Damn nice find. We have been encountering a fair amount of rank 1 monsters lately.”

“What’s the core drop rate again, I always forget.” Ukfanah asks as she snatches the core back.

Florian succinctly answers, “From rank 1’s, it’s about 1 in 100.”

Harold hefts his knapsack as he pulls out his magic compass commanding, “Aight, enough dallying around, let’s get moving.”

While trudging forward through the dense forest I decide to make some conversation, approaching the most handsome of our group I walk beside Florian, remarking, “You know, your party really seems like an odd mismatch, how’d you guys come to meet.”

He looks down at me before explaining, “Well, a party such as ours isn’t too uncommon among adventurers, it’s really all about mutual interests, we are here to earn money, train our skills and get stronger like all other adventurers. And unless you have a death wish, you need a party, so likeminded people group up to complete quests together. So we all just met at the adventurers inn.”

“Mm right, well random question, do you know a Christophe at your academy?” I ask as I look at him expectantly.

His eyes widen slightly as he looks at me intently, “How couldn’t I know Christophe, he’s a genius in our academy, how do you know him?”

Slightly bewildered I say in surprise, “Ha, he’s a genius? I met him at an inn while he was wallowing over a breakup.”

Over the past week, we continue our advance forward, trudging through monsters of all sorts until we fall into a rather precarious situation.

I stumble back as a black slug like beast slingshots into my magic barrier, concurrently casting two fire magic missiles, they pierce through the creature as it deflates and sizzles in flame, like salt on a snail. Another one of those creatures jumps at me, I dive to the side, swinging around and expertly firing off a fire magic missile at the slug, nearly killing it. A moment later a disk slices through its head, finishing it off, I yell, “Thanks!”

Another black slug of immense size emerges from among the trees, as Harold easily slices through a monster, black slimy blood spurting on his face as he shouts out, “Rank 2 dark slug! Mages, focus fire!”

Obeying his command I focus my fiery magic missiles on the giant slug, alternating shots bolt through the air and hit the massive slug with tiny explosions erupting over its body, making me look more akin to artillery than a person. Razorlike disks also slash through the slug, the combined effort of Aurelie and me halts the slug’s approach but we don’t seem to have enough fire power to kill it. The battlefield soon shifts in the monster’s favour while we’re occupied.

Our warriors start to get overwhelmed by the mass of creatures as they start receiving tiny wounds along with their armour getting badly damaged, the solemness on their faces obvious. I fall into a difficult situation as I dodge past assaulting monsters while I try to get my attacks focused on the giant slug. Feeling a pang of anxiety, I decide to stand still and let my shield take a beating, I then focus my casting with even greater intensity causing my mind to greatly strain as a piercing shock of pain erupts in my head, consequently the external runes start constructing faster than I could have ever imagined, my mind seems to overcome a hurdle as my endless magic assault speeds up tangibly, ripping the slug to shreds.

My mana depletes causing me to collapse to the floor in a heaving mess, but as the blur of fire missiles dissipates, all that remains of the rank 2 slug is a dwindling flame among black gunk. Aurelie zooms over to me, killing any nearby monsters to ensure my safety before she chugs down a mana potion and joins the main battle again. While my assistance isn’t required anymore the rest of the battle is still hard fought as the endless slugs continue attacking, however with a mage back in the fray the battle eventually ends, albeit in a pyrrhic victory.

Our party looks to be a wreck, this encounter being the first fight that actually gave us a run for our money. Philippe sits on the ground woozily, cleared concussed to an extent, Florian is spilling a potion on his severely sliced up legs, blood and black mucous covering it, and Harold was holding his shoulder in pain as he shivers slightly. Ukfanah dashes over to him, pouring half a red potion on the wound before letting him drink the rest. We all remain sombrely silent as we recover until Aurelie dashes over to me, placing a hand on my shoulder while I’m kneeled down, she leans her head forward asking with concern, “You alright?”

I push her hand off as I nod my head, “Yeah I’m fine, just mana drained, feel a little dizzy.”

Frowning she ruffles around in her belt, offering “I can give you a mana potion if you want?”

Waving my hands at her, “No way, they’re too expensive, there’s no need.”

“Just a sip at least?” She insists as she pulls out a blue vial and hands it out to me. Sighing I grab it and take a sip, lessening the mental burden of mana drain. When I hand the potion back, a smirk forms on her face as she says, “You had a breakthrough during that fight, it’s unbelievable, but your cast speed of lesser magic missile is at least below one second now, I wonder what your will is at now.”

I shrug, not too concerned with such things right now, Aurelie briefly smiles before sitting next to me in a meditative position. After a few minutes Harold takes out his magic compass saying, “Wherever the magical anomaly was, it was around here, we’ll find a place to camp before we search for whatever it is we’re looking for tomorrow.”

The next day, the party mostly recovered due to the potions, so we are currently scouring the area for any oddities. Florian walks up beside me saying gratefully, “Your magic was really quite impressive yesterday, you may have very well saved us.”

I shake my head as I honestly say, “No need to thank me, I saved myself just as much as I saved you and everyone else.”

Suddenly we hear Ukfanah shout, “Hey! I think I found something.”

We all run over to where the voice came from, we arrive at a large rockpool where a small waterfall spills water into it, a stream flowing out of the rockpool. At the edge of the rockpool beside the waterfall are 5 flowers that gleam with an ethereal glow emanating a mysterious aura. Harold cranes his neck forward, excitedly saying, “Hey, aren’t those…”

Suddenly his head disconnects from his body as a fountain of blood shoots up from his neck. Not a second later Florian collapses to the ground as a circular disk punctures his stomach, guts falling out as he tries to hold them in place with his hands. I break from my frozen horror as I look around in utter confusion, Ukfanah and Philippe already seem to be combat ready with their weapons at the ready and with shockingly cold expressions on their faces. Another disk shoots at Ukfanah who’s body then twists strangely, dodging the attack, Philippe sprints at the obscure figure of Aurelie, I hear Aurelie shout, “Agnes, help!”

Without thought my mind falls into combat mode as I shoot a magic missile at Philippe’s back, he twists around to block my attack with his shield, Aurelie formulates a rune to attack Philippe from behind, but her cast is interrupted as Ukfanah dashes at her. Aurelie leans back, dodging Ukfanah’s dagger, Philippe approaches me swiftly with his shield raised, my fear overrides my sense of propriety as I act out of instinctive self-preservation, briefly considering Philippe as an assaulting monster I raise my arms and rapidly cast fire magic missiles creating a line of fire, the sheer destructiveness of my attack burns Philippe’s shield to ash, further melting his iron chest plate and searing his flesh as he screams in agony. The screams devolve into a strange gurgling before finally stopping, inciting me to cease my assault.

As the smoke settles a charred corpse fallen back on its knees reveals itself, the shrivelled black skull with blackened eyes sockets staring at me eerily. A debilitating force of guilt and regret forces me to my knees, what have I done? I killed a man, no, not just a man, someone who I’ve talked with, befriended, my thoughts jumble up in a confused mess, my body quivering while my breathing grows rapid.

After an unknown amount of time, I’m shook by somebody, opening my eyes Aurelie comes into view with an arm outstretched, her face a mask of concern as she looks at me with a frown, asking worriedly, “Hey Agnes, you ok?”

I fall back as I scramble backwards on the ground feeling absolute horror as I look at her, stuttering out, “You, you, you killed them!”

She nods in acknowledgement, simply agreeing “I did.”

Her nonchalance enrages me as I raise, staring at her neutral face I angrily howl, “How are you okay with this, why, why would you kill them?”

She freezes for a moment as her face regards me with confusion, after a short while she points at the collection of flowers “Those flowers there.”

Looking back at me she then patiently explains, “They are called ‘Hope flowers’, their effect is absolutely miraculous, they increase cultivation talent, priceless in their worth.”

I feel my face drop as my heart darkens in aggrieved anger, iterating in bewilderment, “So, you killed them because you wanted all the flowers for yourself.”

Her face transforms with puzzlement as she explains, “Yes, but it’s a good thing we won out for that very reason.”

I feel my eyes tear up as I look at Aurelie, who is this person? She’s not the little girl who would cry over being bullied, she’s someone who can kill with some twisted self-justification. Clearly noting my turbulent emotions Aurelie’s face shows concern as she continues explaining herself, “You have to understand something, Harold was just as likely to turn on us as I was to turn on them, I simply acted first, and we survived for it. I did it for us, not for me…”

“You don’t know that!” I shout accusingly.

She nods in agreement, replying, “You’re right, I don’t, but that’s not a risk I could take, please understand, it’s always us or them.”

“How could you be so cruel! You’re not Aurelie.” I cry out, before falling back to the ground, looking down at the palms of my hands, quietly murmuring, “And me, I, I killed him, I killed Philippe…”

My emotions burst out as my eyes erupt in tears, I look up to Aurelie and try to speak but my choked sobs prevent me. Aurelie walks over, looking down at me sadly but without remorse. She crouches down, comforting me as she rubs my back, I shiver slightly at her touch, feeling a strange sense of fear before I lean out of her grasp.

When I settle down, Aurelie looks upon me sadly before urging, “We should get moving, the corpses are likely to draw monsters, I’ll collect the flowers, give me a moment.”

She walks over to the rockpool and without dignity stripes herself and dives into the water, swimming over to the flowers. I breath in deeply before wiping the hem of my robe’s sleeve on my drenched face. I study the battlefield, the decapitated form of Harold, the visceral mass surrounding Florian’s body, and Ukfanah who is sliced up bloody, intentionally subverting my gaze from the last corpse. As Aurelie returns with the flowers she waits around in the nude for a short moment to dry off before finally readorning her robes. Walking over to me she offers a hand, which I promptly ignore as I rise myself, sighing she then says, “Let’s get going.”

We leave the area to find a place of relative safety, arriving at an enclosed cave with diminished light flowing into its deeper reaches. Inside Aurelie takes out the flowers while explaining, “It’s said that these flowers were created by a god not recognised by the empire. A god of hope who blesses a mage with good fortune, these flowers are a physical manifestation of that good fortune. You have no idea how lucky we are to come across these flowers, they cannot be bought because no one is stupid enough to sell them, they can give someone without talent for magic, the ability to cast spells, and to mages such as us, improve talent. Here take these, all you need to do is eat it then cultivate, I think so anyway.”

She hands me three of the flowers, I ask with uncertainty, “Don’t we need to make them into a potion or something?”

She chuckles with amusement, “Haha of course not, do you think the story behind the flowers holds no merit? A flower with such spectacular effects could only ever be created by a god, and no mortal man could concoct a potion with divine ingredients. A few flowers don’t cause a magical anomaly unless they’re truly special.”

I dangle one of the flowers in front of her saying, “Well it’s not fair I have the fifth one, you did the most work, you have it.”

She shakes her head as she pushes my hand back towards myself explaining, “Your talent is far lower than mine, you need it more, now hurry up, I’ll keep watch.”

Sighing I look down at the three flowers, there seems to be a mystical glow that draws my eyes as I stare at them. Did a god really deem us worthy to receive such a gift, or is the story just false hearsay, I didn’t even believe in any god in my old world, but from what I’ve seen in this world, a god, or gods existing, is basically a certainty. Breaking from my mulling I grab one of the flowers and ingest it, I feel a gnawing itchiness spread from my chest, then I feel a strangeness envelope my body, like I’ve been thrown into a pool of water. My external senses seem to be cut off as only my internals can be seen with my will. Not sure what to do I simply cultivate, my mana slowly moving throughout my body as it tries to assimilate the excess energy that is residing in my body. I notice two small changes, my mana pathways seem to widen slightly, and my body seems to grow more in tune with the mana, but other than that, nothing. Finally, the energy depletes causing me to awaken from my entranced state. Aurelie rouses from her own meditation as she looks at me expectantly, I say, “It was an interesting experience, I can’t tell how much it really helped though, you’ll understand when you try it.”

We alternate between eating the flowers, the trance seems to only last a few hours but when you’re actually experiencing the ‘transformation’ it feels like days. After eating all my flowers, I properly test out cultivating, it does seem noticeably faster, how much faster is hard to tell but the fact that I can even notice it is rather amazing. I hear Aurelie excitedly say, “This changes everything, to actually increase talent so much, this is the difference between reaching rank 5 and rank 6, I simply cannot believe it.”

“Is it really so great.” I ask doubtfully as I open my eyes. She nods vigorously, “It is, it really is!”

Looking out towards the darkening outside she says, “We’ll stay here for the night before we set off back towards Feiroy.”

Remembering the tiresome trip to get here, I ask in irritation, “Hm, how are we going to return safely? We certainly had a lot of trouble reaching here, even with a full party.”

Ignoring my outburst she laughs mockingly, “Hah, returning will be simple, I’ll be scouting so we’ll barely encounter any monsters, Ukfanah’s scouting was awful, but what can you expect of an elf, they’re all incompetents, and particularly overconfident when they’re in a forest.”

Ok seriously Aurelie.

For the next four weeks we slowly traverse through the forest, avoiding most fights where possible, hiding among trees as beasts run past our location, or jumping into shrubs at a moments notice. When we do accidentally engage, we immediately flee, firing off a few shots before escaping among the dense forest.

We finally leave the forest, my mind feels freed from the constant pressure that magical forest subjected me to, not to mention having no imminent threat of being jumped by monsters. We slowly make our way back to Feiroy, having stocked up on enough cooked monster meat to keep us fed on the three day walk.

Seeing the city in the distance I can’t help but feel relieved. Reaching the city gates, we use our adventurers license to get free entry. Inside the city, the usual bustle bursts into life again, like we were never gone. As we walk through the busy streets people seem to steer clear, as if stepping in our way is cause for death. The adventurers guild eventually pops up, adventurers going about their business, either loitering around or walking off to complete a quest. Entering, we walk to the counter, Aurelie says to the administrator, “We would like to report an unsuccessful quest, we’re from the Tian academy.”

We are brought to a room where we go through all this dull admin rubbish where people ask questions; I just sit there as Aurelie spouts her false story of our party getting overrun by a mass of monsters. Finally, Rachel shows up, shooing away the people there before solemnly asking, “What happened?”

Aurelie sighs in exhaustion as she easily lies yet again, “As I’ve told everyone else like a million times, we ran into more monsters than was expected, but we continued forward at Harold’s behest who was clearly overconfident. Eventually we came across more monsters than we could handle, and the rest of our party died in the ensuing fight. I used my invaluable scouting abilities to return Agnes and myself back safely. That is all.”

She nods darkly before regretfully saying, “Very well then, it’s just rather unfortunate that your first mission was a failure, although I can’t exactly put the blame on you two, there’s no doubt that this mission has put a pretty big stain on both your records. You will obviously not be receiving any reward, and your next semester starts in a few weeks, so we won’t be assigning you two on any new missions.”

“Understood mage De Fevin, I think Agnes and I are due for a clean-up, we’ll be off now if that’s ok.” Aurelie requests as she stands up, pulling me up with her.

She looks us over before saying in agreement, “I suppose you are, I will see you two at the dorm then.”

We leave the room, finding our way to the main room of the guild building where I spot Leonore chatting with a group of adventurers. She seems to sense us as her head flicks to us, a mocking mirth rises on her face as she walks over to us, she says, “I heard what happened.”

Aurelie’s eyebrow raise in mock surprise, “Oh, did you now?”

She snorts as she stares Aurelie down, “You think it’s not obvious, everyone’s thinking it. You two obviously killed your team.”

Aurelie eyes furrow as she asks derisively, “Oh yeah, do you have proof?”

“By the gods Aurelie, do you think I don’t know you? I know just what you’re capable of, and you,” she points at me, continuing, “I’d suggest you keep away from Aurelie, lest she fuck you over.”

Leonore turns around and walks off, cutting the conversation short. Aurelie and I silently stand there, Aurelie’s face in thoughtful reflection, I then nervously ask, “Is she right? Does everyone think we killed them?”

She shrugs before she makes for the exit while explaining, “Maybe, maybe not, either way it doesn’t matter if there is no proof, we’re talented mages and I’m from a mage family. We’d be left be even if there was proof.”

Walking beside her I inquire about another of my concerns with slight accusation, “What about what Leonore said, about you?”

She laughs in amusement, “Haha, I already told you our history, remember?”

“Hm, yeah, you did I guess.” I reply doubtfully. It was rather vague if I’m being honest.

Later that night, back at out dorm room after we cleaned up and had a proper meal, we relax on our beds. I turn over towards Aurelie, studying her face, a stupid grin of joy as she leans her weight into the comfy bed, not at all what I would think a killer would act like. I ask without much thought, “Why me?”

She turns over towards me, repeating in bewilderment, “Why you?”

I sit up before elaborating in full seriousness, “You said that Leonore had trouble making friends, but you’re clearly no different. You cynically judge Hugo and Emilie even after knowing them as long as you’ve known me. And you killed everyone in our party. Why do I get special treatment? I haven’t done anything noteworthy.”

She sits up as well, dropping her chin into her open palm as she mulls over it for a moment, saying, “Because, you’re you, I don’t know, you’re just such an oddity. Everyone else has ambitions and agendas that they try everything in their power to achieve, taking advantage of others where possible. You on the other hand, just go with the flow, striving for what you can with your talent alone, not relying on anyone else. And your optimistic view on everyone is so adorable, it’s like you automatically assume everyone is kind. You know when I first saw you, I could immediately tell you were different, it was like you were from another world, you looked so out of place, it was honestly rather freaky yet mystifying.”

I feel my eyebrows furrow as I fall into a state of confusion, voicing my thoughts, “Why is it wrong to assume others are kind?”

She laughs before saying in amusement, “Why? Come on Agnes, we already went over that in the forest.”

I shiver slightly, but nod anyway, indeed, we did already talk about. I then say with angst, “Maybe how I am is wrong then. Maybe my perspective on the world needs to change.”

Looking at me sympathetically she agrees, “Maybe, but I won’t lie that I will be upset when or if that happens.”

We sit in silence for a moment as we both seem to grow reflective. I suddenly state blandly, “I still haven’t forgiven you; you know.”

Her eyes widen in genuine surprise as she says bemusedly, “You haven’t? I would’ve thought you’d be over it by now.”

“How could I bloody well be over it already!? We killed them for some stupid flowers!” I shout in rage as I raise from my bed. Feeling my eyes sting I then scream more at myself than at her, “And what I hate even more, is how I barely feel anything over their deaths!... There’s something wrong with me…”

Her head perks up in realisation before she looks at me with pity, explaining, “There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s because of your will; it strengthens mental fortitude. To be honest I was rather surprised by how influenced you were by me killing them at all, considering your extraordinarily high will. Instances like that only happen when an action goes completely against someone’s moral compass.”

I frown, angrily saying, “And why wouldn’t it be against my moral compass, we killed them in cold blood.”

She sighs as her expression grows softer, “Ahh, are we really going to talk about this again. Mages are typically very logical; my act of killing was the most logical course of action in our circumstances. Moreover, morality is a privilege for the strong, if Harold turned on us first, we could’ve died, so do you think I was thinking about what was the most moral, no, of course not. It’s unimportant when your life is at stake.”

She’s right, I know she’s right, it’s my old world mentality, but logic means nothing when you don’t want to lose who you were.

“Affinities, what actually are affinities? Well, the mages guild has split affinities based on their rarity, know that rarity does not constitute power. An affinities usefulness is only as powerful as a mage and their spells. Regardless, we have the grade 1 affinities, earth, fire, water, and air, these affinities make up about 90% of mages. Next, we have the grade 2 affinities, light, shadow, ice, and lightning which make up about 10% of mages. And finally, we have the grade 3 affinities, these are incredibly rare as only about 0.1% of mages are born with these affinities which are holy and dark.” Teacher Leon dutifully explains while pacing at the front of the classroom.

He continues, “Now magic is not only limited to affinities, as a matter of fact spells created for attuned affinities are called general magic. There are quite a few types of magic that require no affinities, there is space magic, locismancy; time magic, chronomancy; death magic, necromancy; blood magic, haimamancy; mind magic, phrenmancy; healing magic; divination and finally star magic otherwise called astrology. Please know that the mages guild has outlawed necromancy, haimamancy and phrenmancy due to their potentially nefarious uses. Anyway, that is all for today students, don’t forget we will be having that knowledge quiz in two days to see we’re you’re all at.”

It’s been 6 weeks since class started, 9 weeks since we returned from the forest. Nothing notable has happened, most of what we’ve learnt has been mostly theoretical, so no new spells of late which is quite frustrating, my spell arsenal is really too lacking. I decide to ask the teacher, walking up to him as he packs his books into his knapsack, I request, “Excuse me high mage Leon.”

He turns around gleefully saying, “Ah, mage Agnes, very good progress lately, how can I help you?”

“I would like to learn another spell, I’ll be performing missions during the end of year break, so it’d be ideal if I had more to work with.”

He nods in understanding, “Yes yes, I completely understand, the trouble is, is that the academy does not give out too many spells, this academy is more focused on theoretical knowledge I’m afraid, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing I can do. Your progress has really been exceptional lately, so I do think a reward is deserved, I will give you a spell book for the flare spell, it’s usually taught to second years so you may have a little trouble learning it as you haven’t learnt all the spell theory relating to it but I’m sure you’ll figure it out, come to me if you get completely stuck. I’ll give you the spell book at our next class.”

Deeply appreciative I happily thank him, “Great, thank you so much high mage Leon.”